Final Jeopardy: Play Characters (12-17-20)

Today’s Final Jeopardy question (12/16/2020) in the category “Play Characters” was:

This title character says, “Who find my visage’s center ornament a thing to jest at–it is my wont…to let him taste my steel”

2x champ, Brayden Smith, a policy intern from Las Vegas, NV, has won $66,000 so far. In Game 3, he is up against: Pamela Lee, a lawyer from Mountain View, CA; and Teja Chemudupati, a clinical researcher, from San Jose, CA.

Round 1 Categories: Streaming Service – Prime – Net Flicks – Authors & Their Pets – Common Bonds – That Word Was a Trademark

Brayden found the Jeopardy! round Daily Double in “Authors & Their Pets” under the $1,000 clue on the third pick of the round. He was in second place with $600, $200 less than Pamela’s lead. He bet the $1,000 allowance and he was RIGHT.

Of this author’s dogs, Charley was a good boy, & Toby, who ate the first draft for “Of Mice & Men”, was definitely a bad boy. show

WHO IS JOHN STEINBECK?

Brayden finished in the lead with $9,000. Teja was second with $2,600 and Pamela was last with $200. No clues went uncovered.

Round 2 Categories: First Words – Copping a “tude” – Man about Town – 1800s America – Archaeologists – Audio Dramas

Brayden found the first Daily Double in “1800s America” under the $1200 clue on the 6th pick. He was in the lead with $13,000 now, $9,200 more than Teja in second place. He bet $3,000 and he was RIGHT.

In 1830 the first 13 miles of this railroad opened for service, all within Maryland. show

WHAT IS THE B & O RAILROAD?

Brayden got the last Daily Double in “Archaeologists” under the $1,200 clue on the 17th pick. In the lead with $24,400, he now had $19,000 more than Teja in second place. He bet $4,400 and he was RIGHT.

William Stukeley thought this site was a Druid temple when he excavated it in the 18th century. show

WHAT IS STONEHENGE?

Brayden finished in the lead with $36,400, yet another runaway. Teja was next with $7,000 and Pamela was in third place with $2,200. No clues went uncovered.

NONE of the contestants got Final Jeopardy! right.

WHO IS CYRANO DE BERGERAC?

The entire quote from Edmond Rostand’s play “Cyrano de Bergerac” (1897) is: Take notice, boobies all,
Who find my visage’s center ornament
A thing to jest at—that it is my wont—
An if the jester’s noble—ere we part
To let him taste my steel, and not my boot!
I think it’s a rather loose translation of the original French (starting at “Avis donc aux badauds”).

However, I would have gone with one of the nose insults that Cyrano came up with himself to put the Viscount in his place. In particular, I liked the peninsula comparison. Watch Jose Ferrer in the above scene from the 1950 film “Cyrano de Bergerac”. Ferrer won the Best Actor Oscar for his performance in that film.

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Pamela thought it was Zorro (who makes the sign of the Z). She lost $2,195 and finished with $5.00.

Teja went with Laertes, Hamlet’s murderer. That cost him $2,500. He finished with $4,500.

Brayden came up with “The Man of La Mancha”. Aside from being a play title, that’s about Don Quixote. He lost $8,600 and won the game with $27,800. His 3-day total is $93,800.

A triple stumper from each round:

PRIME ($600) Batch number of a bestselling grease-cutting “Formula” created by Detroit scientists years ago

FIRST WORDS ($2000) “A screaming comes across the sky”, begins this 1973 Thomas Pynchon novel

More clues on Page 2

2 years ago: BOTH players left in FJ got this one in “19th Century Authors”

In the preface to a book of his stories, he thanks a herpetologist of Upper India & an elephant named Bahadur Shah show

WHO IS RUDYARD KIPLING?

Click here to leave condolences for Alex Trebek and his family. There’s also a link to where you can make a donation to pancreatic cancer research in his honor.